1. Technical Field
The invention concerns a method for providing at least one service to users of a telecommunication network, a method for provisioning the execution of service logic functions within a service control facility of a telecommunication systems, a service control facility for connecting to one or several service switching exchanges of a telecommunication network and a server node for a service control facility connected to one or several service switching exchanges of a telecommunication network.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Telecommunication services can be provided according to the Intelligent Network Architecture.
A user of a telecommunication network requests a service by dialing the number dedicated to the service. The call with this number is routed through the telecommunication network to a service switching exchange which recognizes this call as a call requesting the service. Then, this service switching exchange communicates via a data network with a service control facility, the so called service control point. This service control point contains a service logic which contains a description of the method that has to be executed to provide the service to the calling user. By a request of the service switching exchange the execution of this method by the service logic is initiated and the requested service is provided to the requesting user.
The service switching exchange is closely linked to a service control facility. The configuration of this link is made through basic proprietary tools provided by the service switching exchange/service control facility pair vendor and do not allow easy and dynamic configurations.
This service logic is realized as a single process handling all calls one after the other. Each of them going through a single queue. Each call is associated with a context allowing the state of the call not to be lost between user interaction. The service is executed through a finite state machine, taking as input the TCAP message and the context of the call.
The disadvantage of this approach is that this architecture of provisioning services is inflexible and does not make good use of the underlying data processing systems.